280 



VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



scribes the Radicula, which furnishes a juice very 

 efficient in the cleansing of wool, making it ex- 

 tremely white and soft. This is indigenous to Asia 

 Minor and Syria, flourishing in rough and stony 

 places, its most genial soil being beyond the Eu- 

 phrates. Its stalk is slender and resembles that of 

 fennel ; the leaf is like that of the olive ; it blooms 

 in summer, and bears a very fine flower but without 

 perfume. 



This perhaps, or a plant very similar to the above 

 description, is in the present day used for washing in 

 the lower part of Italy and in Spain. It is called 

 Lanaria by the Calabrians, and is known to botanists 

 under the name of Gypsophila struthium. 



Soap-wort Sapvnaria offkinalis. 



